But I didn't cry this time, which is surprising

Before we went to his open house a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd be thrilled, excited, relieved and overjoyed to have him gone in the mornings again.  As I've said many times over, probably so many that you want to kick me in the shins, it's been a hard summer.  The kids are at the perfect age to bug the crap out of each other and they take full advantage of it, fighting and yelling all day long.

Plus Sebastian is so bored and I'm ill-equipped to ease that boredom when I spend most of my time refereeing.  So I was looking forward to the time when he wasn't looking to me all the time to offer him something fun to do.

But at open house I got that feeling, that rock in my stomach that told me I wasn't ready, even though I didn't have a choice. It's one more step he's taking without me, one more adventure he gets to go on that I'm not suited up for.

But there was also something entirely new going on in my ridiculously sentimental brain.  There was something so familiar about that school, and not just because he went there last year.  I peeked in another classroom as I walked by, and it was set up like the ones from my elementary school.  Not the new one where we weren't allowed to touch the walls, but the old one that was about 10 feet from the Catholic church, where us Catholics left class once a week for religion while the heathens who weren't catholic got to watch a movie.

I spent a lot of time in and around that place.  And maybe it's just because he's going to a catholic school that is right next to the church, but it felt comforting, solid, familiar.

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I changed his pants twice, and wanted to change them back to the first pair but we ran out of time.  He's in between sizes and I couldn't decide if I should go big or small.  I ended up with small.  He was so thrilled to be going to school, but when we walked into the classroom he seemed a little hesitant, much more so than last year.   

When I kissed him goodbye he said he'd miss me while he was at school.

Oh honey.  I missed you, too.

(Last year's first day of school post is here.)

So I had a birthday party for my son a month ago …

And in finally looking through my pictures I realized that I don’t have that many.

I promise he had more fun than this pictures shows.

Woops.  I was kind of busy.

About a week before Sebastian’s party Chris decided that it needed to have a theme.  Now, he will tell you that he just suggested it, but everyone knows that by ‘suggesting’ he totally meant ‘Get on it, Woman.’

I’ve never considered myself someone who has ‘theme’ parties.  I mean, I like them and I enjoy the result, but I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it because I am not that disciplined and also kind of lazy.  And yet here I was.

It took us forever to actually pick one out.  We started with dragon themes and Viking themes and finally, FINALLY settled on a camping one.  My idea, by the way.  And then I went nuts.  The kids were with grandparents so I had time to spend searching around online for different ideas of what I could do.  I started big, with games and party favors and s’mores.  (What?  That doesn’t sound that big to you? Try putting it together in a week with your husband spending all of his free time doing homework instead of keeping the children out of your hair.  Don’t judge me.)

Water balloons!

Throughout the week I whittled away at everything until I think we had a pretty good set up.  I got rid of the ‘Pin the Fire on the Log’ game because I was afraid of the end result looking like a flaming piece of shit.  And we decided that a nature hike wasn’t necessary because they could just walk around the backyard themselves whenever they wanted.

Scavenger hunt!

But I did keep the gift bags full of snakes and bugs and homemade trail mix and flashlights and glow sticks and candy.  We used a scavenger hunt for that one.

And the day dawned bright and record-breakingly hot, topping out at 107, I believe.  We actually weren’t that stressed because I’d done as much as I could have early, including cutting out about a million cloud, tree, and camping-related pieces for a garland that I sewed and glued myself, and cupcake decorations that I taped to toothpicks myself.

Scavenger hunt!

Because I am insane.  My wrists were pretty pissed at me for awhile after the party.  And no, I don’t have a picture but it's still hanging up in my back room if you want to come over and look at it. 

We had the pool set up and a sprinkler and water balloons.  We had a canoe casually placed in our backyard and a tent that kept blowing over.  We had the fire pit set up, partly for the scavenger hunt and partly for the s’mores that never actually got made because I forgot about them.

A thing of beauty. At least by my inexperienced standards.

And we had pizza and lemon cupcakes and chocolate cake that I decorated myself. 

And we had a damn good time.  The scavenger hunt had clues like “When you’re done canoeing and want to rest, where do you go? When you want to cook the fish you caught, what do you use?”  The final one was “When you come home from camping and you want to take a nap in the living room, what do you do it on?”  You guys, I am so creative!  But we had to keep the gift bags inside because the trail mix had chocolate in it.

As I was carrying Sebastian up to bed that night he squeezed me extra tight.  And then he said ‘This was the best birthday ever!  Thank you for giving it to me!’

Totally worth all of the stress.

Homemade Friday: I'm tired. Here's a photo.

These Homemade Friday posts are getting more and more difficult.  I mean, I am making things, it's just I keep forgetting to take pictures.  Hell, I made some awesome muffins this morning for breakfast.  They had coconut and carrots and raisins and apples in them.  And if I really wanted to I could walk into my kitchen and take a picture of the cooked muffins, but really, that's a lot of work on almost no sleep.  

Ask me how pissed I am at last night's thunderstorm.  Go on.

So.  Here's a photo of Sebastian wearing a cape my mom made him and making a beaver dam.  (I guess the beaver dam can be the homemade part of this post?)

He's so goddamn grown up that it kills me.  Last week he stayed at my parent's house overnight and she had him call me the next morning.  He greeted me with "Hello!  Sebastian here!"

I love him so much my chest hurts.

She's going to hate me when she's a teenager and sees this.

Last night I was all set to instagram the hell out of this photo:

Or maybe even this one:

Yes, she's still wearing her shoes.

And make it delightfully old-timey, with a caption about how she was ready for her bath before I was ready for her to get in the tub, but as I was choosing a filter I hear this whining from the bathroom.  (No, I don’t always stay right there in the bathroom when she’s in the tub.  I like to instagram in peace.)

At first I just ignored her because she whines all the time these days, but she didn’t stop so I went to check on her and I see her staring at something in the tub.  Honestly I was afraid to look, because I knew what was I was in for.

You guys, she POOPED IN THE TUB FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS WEEK.  And she was inching away from it, you know, because it’s poop, and looking at me like “What the hell is that?”

Well, if you would stop dropping deuces whenever you’re in some form of water, maybe you wouldn’t have to deal with it, ADELE!

It’s like, every time her toe touches water, be it in a pool or the tub, it automatically works as a laxative. 

So I yell for poor Chris, who’s trying to finish his homework, and he comes upstairs to help, understandably irritated.  And you guys, I can’t stop laughing.  Like cry-laughing, that is so close to crying that before I know it I actually AM crying on account of all the drama that this little girl incites.  Lack of sleep, smacking, spitting her milk or any food on the floor just to spite me, the endless tantrums. 

She is so much work.  Right now she’s in her bed, supposed to be napping, but will probably start yelling before too long because she’s thrown her pacifier out of the bed as a way to get me to come back into her room.

But anyway, Chris cleaned out the tub, for the second time this week.  But I’ve done it three times myself, not to mention all the times I’ve cleaned her up after she pooped when swimming, plus there’s the cloth diapers, so I kind of win this round of ‘who has dealt with the most poop.’ 

Later that night as Sebastian was walking to his dad to kiss him goodnight I noticed something on his head.  He’d just had some yogurt as a snack and apparently the lid had been left with him in the living room.  Somehow it ended up stuck to the back of his head.  He’d just had a bath.

I wiped it off with a baby wipe.